Strays on the Street
by Omega Devin
Summary: Lisa's always had a soft spot for strays... JL peach fuzz oneshot.


**Author's Note:** I own nothing from Red Eye. Just a random, semi-fluff Jackson/Lisa fic I thought of one night, to sooth an itch for the hopeless romantic inside me. It doesn't have anything to do with House of Cards, and won't have any repeating themes (at least not right now). If you don't like Jackson/Lisa fics, then don't read. That is your only warning.

Forgiveness for any OOC-ness of behalf of the characters. There's also not going to be a lot of history on the events following the red eye; that's not what the story's about.

**Summary:** Lisa's always had a soft spot for strays… J/L peach-fuzz one-shot.

**Strays on the Street**

Lisa Reisert grunted softly as she shifted the multitudes of packages and shopping bags in her arms, trying to find a more comfortable position for them as she made her way back to her car. The streets of downtown Miami were steadily emptying of the day's holiday shoppers as the stores closed up for the night, all of them ready to head back to their warm homes and out of the chill of the approaching night. Lisa felt her own stomach grumble, a reminder of the neglect she gave it during the course of the day. As usual, she had attempted to finish all her Christmas shopping in one go, but it was not without its repercussions. Sore feet, tight shoulders, an empty stomach and a pulsating headache were common side effects. Still, there was something very rewarding about getting shopping done and over with without waiting until the last moment. Now she was free to enjoy the holidays at her own pace.

Lisa turned a corner and proceeded down the night-dark street towards her car. Most of the stores and restaurants were closed down already, their signs dark and their windows empty. Only the sparse nightclubs and bars remained open, their dusky neon lights creating pools of multicolor light in between the intervals of streetlights. She always hated how the night could change the most serene of streets into such ominous places, but she no longer feared being alone in the dark as she once had. After the events of the red eye flight 1019 and her terrifying encounter with the Charles Keefe assassination plot, it had taken drastically less time for Lisa to get her life back in order than it had following her traumatic episode in the parking lot two years earlier. Although she was still cautious of strangers and of the dark shadows that clung to the night, Lisa felt far more confident and stronger than she had been in any other time in her life. Regardless that Jackson Rippner as disappeared from police custody shortly after his release from the hospital, Lisa had come to terms with the past was in the past, and she would just have to deal with whatever the future had to bring as life dealt it out to her.

Lisa finally was able to locate her car, parked just a ways down from an Irish pub that was crowded with its normal Friday-night crowd, and with a sigh of relief, she unlocked her trunk, unloading the multitude of bags and boxes into it. The wind was beginning to pick up, biting through her woolen jacket and chilling her to the skin. Heavenly thoughts of a hot bubble-bath and a freshly-opened bottle of chardonnay filled Lisa's mind like visions of sugar plums when a commotion somewhere behind her broke through her thoughts and called her attention to the pub behind her. Glancing behind her shoulder, Lisa could see that the light glowing from the interior of the pub was blocked by the bodies of the men inside, their features hidden in silhouette. The voices that resonated from within were all angry over something, shouting at someone with a slur of obscenities before another dark, slumped figure was pushed roughly out the front doors, loosing his balance on the way out and landing, hard, on the pavement below.

"'an stay out!" a gruff, disembodied voice shouted to the crumpled figure on the street. "We don' need your kind around here! Take your problems and drown them somewhere else!"

Lisa winced at the scene, and to the fall that the drunk had taken when he was given the heave-ho out of the pub's doors. Although common sense told her to leave the man be, to simply get in her car and drive home without a second glance or remorse, but damn it all, her instincts as a people-pleasing hotel manager kicked in involuntarily and annoyingly. With a frustrated sigh, Lisa unlocked her trunk, throwing the Christmas packages into it before turning back to the fallen man.

She stood over him, studying him the best she could from her vantage before taking a step further. Lisa bent over the crumpled figured, and wrinkled her nose as the smell of hard alcohol rolled over her. Christ, he might as well have been bathing in the stuff. Lisa held her breath as she reached out and touched the man's shoulder. "Hey… Hey, are you okay?"

The man groaned, coughing wetly. Lisa braced herself, waiting for him to throw up, but when it never came, she shook his shoulders lightly to gain his attention. "Um…sir?"

"Get away!" The man suddenly snarled, lashing out at Lisa with one arm, knocking her away from him. His voice was thick with intoxication, and raspy as though he had been recently ill. Clumsily, the man attempted to get to his feet in shaking steps. As he came into the pool of smoky lamplight, Lisa was surprised to see that he appeared to be younger than she had expected. The man had a slender build, almost gracefully athletic in his own right, but his hair was a hopeless tangle of thick brown locks, his the professional-looking suit was horribly wrinkled, and looked as though it had been worn for days. As Lisa watched him lurch away, bracing himself heavily against the wall of the pub for support, she realized that he just wasn't some dead-end drunk. Something had happened to this man, something that had turned his life completely upside down. It was almost…tragic, in a sense.

"Why are you still here?" The man's voice shook Lisa out of her thoughts, and she jumped in spite of herself. She was not even aware that the man had looked back at her.

Lisa stood, approaching the man cautiously. Every logical sense told her that she should just walk away and leave the man to his problems, but she was only further compelled to stay. _Damn my good-hearted nature. It'll be the end of me someday_. "Are you sure you don't need help? The least I could do is all a cab…"

"Damn it, woman, I told you to go away!"

There was something about the man's voice, the tone taken with her, and the continue rasp in his words that made Lisa pause, frowning. Why did the man's voice hit a sudden chord of familiarity, as though she had heard it before… Steeling herself against any oncoming rebuttals, Lisa carefully approached the drunk once more, this time leaning against the same wall he was against, trying to position herself in a position where she could look at his face. He did not seem to notice her presence, but Lisa could do little to mask her gasp of surprise when she looked at his face. Even through the mask of shadows, the gaunt, pale skin and several day's worth of unshaved stubble, nothing could fool Lisa to the man's real identity. "Jackson…"

Jackson sneered, but would not look at her. "Hello, Leese."

"I…what…" She swallowed, gaining her composure. "What are you doing here?"

"What the hell does it look like I'm doing?" Jackson attempted to push off the wall, to turn away from her, but he was so drunk that he nearly lost his balance altogether, tripping over his own feet as he made an attempt to get away. "What are you doing here? Come to gloat?"

"To gloat about what? You getting ready to get sick all over the wall? What are you doing here, Jackson?"

"If you're going to ask me if I've come to finish the job, save your breath. The job was terminated as soon as you fucked everything up. The same goes for my employment."

"They fired you?"

"Fired?" Jackson laughed bitterly. "I'm lucky that they didn't kill me. I've lost everything." Jackson looked up at her, glaring fire and daggers at her. Lisa actually stumbled back, a chill running down her spine. "And it's all your fault."

Two years ago, when Lisa was a more fragile, vulnerable person, she would have been afraid by the murderous glare in those icy blue eyes, the razor-sharp edge to his voice. She might have feared for her life, her mind reeling through all the events that took place on the red eye flight; Jackson threatening her father's life, Jackson strangling her in the tiny airplane bathroom, Jackson with a ballpoint novelty pen sticking out of his windpipe, Jackson chasing her around her house with a knife in hand. But there was something about the broken man standing before her that wiped all memories from her mind and all fear from her heart. "So what are you going to do, Jackson? Take your revenge? Hope that your company will welcome you back, that it'll get your life back in order?"

Jackson snorted. "Trust me, the thought's crossed my mind. Nothing would make me happier right now than strangling every last breath from your lungs."

Although Lisa had no doubt in her mind that if Jackson was slightly more…well, _capable_ at the moment, he could have very well carried out his said form of revenge, but seeing him now, in this state, his words were merely empty threats. She squared her shoulders, looking directly at him. "You couldn't even walk a straight line right now if your life depended on it, Rippner. Show me some coordination and I might consider taking you seriously."

Jackson laughed dryly. "Nice to see you've grown more of a backbone. The Lisa I first met wouldn't have come a hundred feet of a man if she absolutely couldn't help it."

Lisa felt her temper begin to rise at his words. "Grow a backbone? If I remember right, I wasn't the one who was bleeding on the floor last time I saw you. Now listen, _Jack_. Who's the stronger party here? You stand there, trying to dredge up the past and stir up bad blood, but I'm the only one who's willing to help you. Or, I could just leave you hear and have the police deal with you when your drunken ass ends up somewhere you don't want to be. So what'll it be, hmm?" When Jackson didn't answer, Lisa sighed, and in two quick strides she was at his side, grabbing his arm and hauling it around her shoulders.

"…the hell are you doing?" Jackson slurred, struggling against her, but lacking the strength to shake her off.

"Shut up." Lisa snapped. "Just shut up and don't say anything else until we get back to my house. And I swear to God, if you throw up in my car…"

It proved to be incredibly difficult to move Jackson from the wall over to her car, having to shift his dead weight on her shoulders while fishing her keys out of her purse, opening the car door and getting him inside. At least he did not put up much of a fight. Maybe it was because Lisa had mentioned the police. She knew Jackson had evaded custody, but if he was more willing to let her help him than being potentially picked up by local authority, than it probably meant that they were still after him. Pretty careless move on his part, getting completely shit-faced in a local bar. Jackson had always seemed like the much more careful type, never letting himself slip up or put himself in a situation that would give himself away. To see him like this – completely lost, with nothing else in the world – was surprisingly hard to bear.

_There must be something wrong with me. Anyone else would have left him in the gutter after what he's done…_

Jackson did not say much of anything on the way back to Lisa's condo home, not even when she insisted on buckling his seatbelt for good measure. In fact, during most of the ride home he remained slumped against the door, but whether he was actually asleep or not. In the first few minutes of the drive home, Lisa's mind could not get over how unnatural and unhealthy this had to be in the long run, and how little she had thought this through. Realistically, how many people went out of their way to take care of their drunk would-be murderers by bringing them back to their homes? She had no reason to trust Jackson, to not trust that he would actually do something to her when he recovered in the morning. Would he still be so intent on finishing the job?

_I must be out of my mind…_

And yet, Lisa could not bring herself to pull over and merely dump him on the side of the freeway. She just was not that type of person. So the fifteen minute long drive back to her condo was passed in silence, with only Jackson's prone form and Lisa's distressed thoughts to keep her company. Half of her brain prayed that she would not regret her decision in the morning. The second half just hoped to all that was holy that Jackson wouldn't get sick all over the interior of her car.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Lisa pulled into her driveway, and reluctantly turned off the engine. She was past the point of changing her mind, short of calling the police and having them take him off her hands. No, that wasn't right. She was past the point of no return the moment she decided to help him, to not leave him vulnerable on that street corner as the night grew colder and more unforgiving. With a heavy sigh, Lisa got out of her car, then walked over to the passenger's side, carefully opening the door in case Jackson was leaning too much against it. The drunk man barely stirred as Lisa reached across his lap and unbuckled his seatbelt, and for a moment she wondered if he was really asleep.

_If he drank as much alcohol as he smells it, he's lucky he's not dead_.

Lisa harrumphed, placing one hand on Jackson's shoulder and giving him a quick shake. "Wake up, Jackson. I'm not about to carry you in the house." Jackson merely responded by groaning, and for one frustrated moment, Lisa thought he had ignored her, but when she attempted to get him out of her car he made a weak attempt at pulling himself out, and actually made an attempt to hold himself up as he and Lisa made their way awkwardly to her front door. The presents in the trunk of her car could wait until the morning. Now all she had to worry about was some nosy neighbor seeing her hauling a drunk man to her house.

"Now listen to me, Jack." Lisa said sharply as she coaxed him into taking another clumsy step. "I don't know exactly what I'm doing here. Technically, I have no reason to be helping you after what you did to me, but here we are all the same. So I'll only say this once. I want you out of my house tomorrow morning, regardless of the hangover you'll have when you wake up. Then I never want to see you again, you hear? If you so much as look at me the wrong way, I'll have the cops here so fast it'll make your head spin. Do we have an understanding?"

Jackson promptly responded by vomiting all over her driveway.

-x-x-x-

Fifteen minutes and one old father's shirt later, Lisa had finally managed to get Jackson inside and changed out of his vomit-soaked shirt. Her strength finally gave out as she let him sag lifelessly onto her couch. With a groan, Jackson lay down across the cushions with no persuasion at all, stretching out fully and comfortably as though he did it on a regular basis.

_As though we might have been a real couple…_

_Stop that_!

Lisa growled in her throat as she watched the man on her sofa, listened to his breathing steadily change from a wet rasp to the deeper, slower rhythm of a normal sleep. This wasn't right, it wasn't natural… So why was she suddenly kneeling next to him as he slept, watching his face in his slumbering state, noting how peaceful he looked, how he suddenly seemed so at ease, so okay with the world. As Lisa watched him, she tried desperately to recall memories of his face as he chased her around her father's house, hell bent on slitting her throat, but the images seemed to be floating further and further away, slipping through her fingers like water. It seemed like it was all another lifetime ago… A lifetime she was trying to leave behind, and move forward towards a new future.

_Always look forward._

She was looking forward, and all she could see was Jackson, asleep on her sofa.

It took an amazing amount of willpower for Lisa to tear her gaze away from him, to leave the sofa and walk over to the hallway closest to retrieve a blanket for her unexpected guest. _This is only temporary,_ Lisa thought to herself. _If Jackson was a smart man – and I know he is – he'll be gone tomorrow morning. I could care less what he does, just as long as he stays out of my life_.

Jackson was just another stray on the street, a lost and cold animal that she had pitied and taken home with her. Lisa had always been one to take home strays, ever since she was a little girl. A moment of sympathy, of compassion without any regard that she was never prepared to have a pet in her life.

Besides, she had never been allowed to keep the strays for more than a day. Her mother always made her take them to the pound the following morning.

Of course Jackson wouldn't go to the pound. But he would still be gone in the morning.

Draping the blanket over Jackson's sleeping form, Lisa took one last, long look at him before she retreated to her own room for the night. She didn't even bother to lock the door behind her.

-x-x-x-

Jackson awoke early the next morning by the splitting headache that lanced from the back of his eyes to his throbbing temples and across his forehead. His stomach was churning, and he was in the kind of mood that made him want to bite the head off of the first person that talked to him. Yup. All the telltale signs of a classic hangover.

_Holy hell, what was I doing last night?_ Every time he tried to remember the details, everything would dissolve into mist. It had started as any other day… A bland, meaningless day, as each one had been before ever since he lost his job. Wake up in the same cheap motel room, take a cold shower to rid himself of the last of the hangover from the previous night's binge, then spend the rest of the day flipping aimlessly through the same five decrepit TV channels before his depression finally got the better of him and he retreated back into the bottle. But there was something different last night, something that seemed to make his current situation in life so much more unbearable…

Maybe it was the fact that Christmas was right around the corner, though the notion struck him as being a little odd. Jackson was never a church-going man, and never had much of a family to spend the holidays with. But there was something about yesterday that struck a chord somewhere deep inside him. It was something about seeing the happy families out and about on their holiday errands… Perhaps it had been the young couples hand-in-hand as they finished the last of their shopping, or maybe it was the carefree children that pressed their noses anxiously against the glass windows of toy shops. Or maybe it was even the old couples that sat together on the park benches, huddled together with cups of coffee in hand as they just simply enjoyed being together. Or maybe it was all of those things put together. Regardless of whatever it was, it had drove Jackson to the edge. No matter where he looked, everyone had something or someone. And he had…

Nothing.

Jackson had once claimed to a certain someone that he was not suicidal. But last night, there had been something that made his rethink that claim, and for a brief period of time, immersed in the smoky, dingy light of the pub in downtown Miami, he remembered wishing that perhaps that it was the night that he would finally be able to drink himself into a shallow grave.

Who was there to care? There would be one less useless soul for the world to worry about. He could at least save the world that much more grief. It was the only thing left he had power over.

But he had been saved. Saved by the mercy of a saint…

_Of an angel…_

Jackson slowly opened his eyes, and once his vision cleared he found himself in unfamiliar territory. He was no longer in the cheap motel room that he had been living out of for the past four months or so. He was in a house… Someone's home. A small but cozy little place with coordinating furniture and painted walls to match. The front room was completely dark, save for the Christmas tree that stood in the far corner next to a gas-burning fireplace, the small white twinkle lights casting a very soothing, mystical light across the walls and floor. The whole scene was picturesque, quiet, peaceful…

But where the hell was he!

He couldn't help but think it all looked familiar…painfully familiar. Like he had seen this exact room somewhere before, and had once been very familiar with it…

Then he remembered, like a bolt of lightning striking him in the brain…

_Lisa_.

Of all the people in Miami, out of all the people in the _world_, it had been Lisa Reisert that had found him, drunk and senseless, flat on his face after being thrown quite physically from the pub. Fate had been cruel by reuniting them in such a manner. And yet she didn't laugh or mock him. She didn't scream or try to kick the crap out of him or called the police. Instead she had done the unthinkable…

She had taken him home and let him sleep off his intoxication on her couch. She had even covered him up with a blanket. If he had been so certain that she had merely done all those things out of the simple goodness of her heart, he would have been sure she had been mocking him.

After the whole ordeal on the red eye flight, Lisa had still taken pity on him, trusted him enough to leave him unattended in her own home. Either the woman was completely out of her mind, or she had the purest heart than anyone else in the world. Somehow, the latter didn't surprise him at all.

But he couldn't stay here. There was no need to wear out his welcome. With a groan, Jackson pushed himself up from the couch, his headache giving another painful throb behind his eyes. The blanket slid off his legs and into a puddle on the floor as he shakily made his way to the front door of Lisa's condo. The front windows were completely dark save for the string of Christmas lights Lisa had tacked up around the outer edges, but it was enough to tell Jackson that it was still pretty much in the middle of the night. If he was lucky, then he could slip out of her home unnoticed by the neighbors and avoid arousing suspicion. He was fairly certain that once he was gone, Lisa would want him to stay out of his life, and not have to deal with anyone asking any questions.

Jackson reached for the doorknob, then paused.

Before he could question himself to what he was doing, he was walking down the adjacent hallway, in the direction of Lisa's bedroom.

She was sound asleep in her bed, laying on her side, one arm bent so her hand came to rest by her head. He noted how her fingers were curled, the tips just barely touching her slightly parted lips. Completely relaxed, completely at peace with the world. Indescribably beautiful. Jackson was unaware of how long he stood in the doorway, watching Lisa dream away. Long lashes resting against her smooth porcelain cheek. He stood there for a very long time, watching the woman who had once been his job, his target, his threat… And now she was his savior as well.

Her chest rose and fell gently in time with her breathing.

Jackson left her house as quietly as he could, shutting the door behind him, then locking it with the spare key she kept under the flowerpot on her porch.

-x-x-x-

When Lisa awoke the next morning, Jackson was already gone.

She wondered why she didn't feel grateful. It was what she had wanted, wasn't it? Once the horror of the red eye flight was over, Lisa had hoped that Jackson Rippner would never appear in her life again. That had all been changed the night before, when she found him drunk and helpless on the streets of downtown Miami.

Against her better judgment, she had taken him home, but was fully prepared to take pleasure in kicking him back out the following morning. Maybe they would have had a re-enactment with the field hockey stick. It was an amusing thought at the time.

When Lisa walked out into the living room that morning, riled up and ready to have a full out verbal brawl with the man who had once tried to kill her, she was slightly disappointed to see that he had already left. He had taken his vomit-soaked shirt with him, but the blanket she had used to cover him with the night before lay discarded on the floor at the foot of her sofa. With a sigh, Lisa picked up the blanket and began to fold it, catching a faint hint of his scent as she did so.

She paused during her task, remembered.

"_Mommy, can I keep him?"_

"_Absolutely not."_

"_But why? He was all alone when I found him, and he was so cold…"_

"_You're not keeping it, Lisa."_

"_I'll take good care of him, I promise! He needs me!"_

"_You don't know the slightest thing about taking care of a pet. Besides, it came off the street. Who knows where it's been. We'll take it to the pound later today. Then it'll have the chance of finding a home that can take real care of it…"_

Lisa sank down to her couch, clutching the blanket to her.

_Can I keep him?_

Jackson was never one to be kept by anyone.

-x-x-x-

_For being named the Sunshine State, how does it manage to get so cold in Florida during the winter?_

Jackson shoved his hands deeper in his pockets as he continued to tread along the empty Miami streets, making his way to nowhere in particular. It was getting late. The heavily gray overcast skies were steadily deepening to the black of night, and an uncharacteristic chilling wind was howling down the streets, biting clean through the University of Miami sweatshirt he wore. It was just a cheap tourist's gift, not really meant to keep out the cooler temperatures of the winter, but it was the best he could do with the money he had.

He had spent the whole day thinking. For some reason, waking up in Lisa's condo that morning (had it only been that morning? It felt like ages ago) had given him a change of heart granted his new position in life. Sure, he might have lost his job, but he still had his life. In a profession like he had, that was an act of mercy in itself, but what good was it when he was drowning in booze every night and lamenting over the past? Perhaps his rendezvous with Lisa had been a sort of divine sign, if there was such a thing. Lisa had obviously moved on with life after the red eye flight. Perhaps it was time that he grew up and did the same.

The streets were almost completely empty of people, but were still lit with the city's holiday decorations. White and multi-colored lights were glowing from the eves of the shops and building lining the street, and foil bells and wreaths hung from the streetlamps. Christmas was just around the corner, and yet Jackson felt none of the joy that the holidays had to offer.

Something cold and wet fell onto Jackson's cheek, then another on his shoulder. Frowning, he looked up towards the sky, just in time for a third raindrop to strike him right in the eye. He cursed, wiping it away. _Figures._ But he took it as a sign nonetheless, and began to make his way back towards his motel. There was no use in him catching pneumonia while trying to start life anew.

As Jackson turned a corner and proceeded back in the direction of his motel, a small noise caught his attention. A small squeak, barely registering to the human ear, and at first Jackson brushed it off as being nothing of importance. The rain was coming down harder now, and it was shockingly cold. The sooner he got out of it, the better. But then the tiny sound came again, a miniscule cry for help. Jackson paused in his tracks, looking around for the source of the sound until his eyes came to rest on a half-crumpled cardboard box against the side of a building. Scribbled on the side of the box in children's handwriting were the words "Free kittens".

Back when Jackson was a harder, colder man, working as an assassination manager, he would have walked away, but something compelled him then to look in the box. Huddled in the far corner was a kitten, hardly more than a ball of orange fluff, trying to take shelter under a bent portion of the box as the rain began to pour in. The kitten looked hardly old enough to be separated from its mother, and now it was left alone, without food or shelter, left to the mercy of the elements, simply because no one wanted it. No one cared…

Jackson bent down towards the box, picking up the kitten easily in one hand. The tiny creature shivered in his palm, its eyes shut tightly. If nothing was done, the poor thing would be dead by morning. Without thinking twice, Jackson unzipped the top of his sweatshirt and put the kitten inside, holding it to his chest. He could feel its miniscule claws gripping the cloth of his shirt, clinging to the one source of warmth it had.

Jackson sighed.

"Great. Now what do I do with you?"

The kitten mewled. Then he decided.

-x-x-x-

It was close to seven o'clock when it started raining. Although most people would consider Miami winters heavenly compared to most other parts of the country, there were still times every few years when Florida had a cold snap, bringing in colder temperatures than what the locals were used to and much less comfortable with. Lisa rather liked the colder weather, as rare as it was for being so far down south, so she took the opportunity to curl up on her sofa, blanket on her knees, tea in one hand and book in the other, and imagine herself in a place much more suitable for the Christmas holidays. A fire was burning in her gas fireplace, though it was mostly for effect rather than to heat her home.

But the illusion only lasted so long. Her mind was not on her book, and her tea grew cold and untouched. Her mind was wandering, drifting back to the night before, and to a pair of striking blue eyes…

Lisa was immediately pulled from those thoughts by a knocking on her front door, soft and polite. She frowned, wondering who could be coming to call at this hour. She rose from the couch, slipping her feet into the slippers that awaited her on the floor before crossing the room and opening the front door. When Lisa pulled the front door open, the last thing she had expected to see was the same crystal blues eyes she was just thinking about staring back at her. Yet there he was, his hair plastered to his head from the rain and looking very out of character in the University of Miami sweatshirt he was wearing. For several long moments, they only stared at each other, until Jackson finally cleared his throat.

"Are you going to invite me in or am I just going to have to stand out here in the rain?"

Still dumbfounded by his second unexpected reappearance in her life, Lisa only nodded numbly, stepping to the side so Jackson could come into her house. Before last night, she was sure she would have been in a state of panic. Running for her room, grabbing her old high school field hockey stick, calling the police as she threatened to beat him within an inch of his life if he didn't leave… But there was none of that now. Her guard was still up, every nerve on edge, yet she didn't feel threatened by his presence. Maybe it was the lingering memory from last night. Or maybe it was because he looked so much like a normal person now, and not the assassination manager he had been when she first met him.

_No… When we first met he was just another guy in line at the airport, wanting to go home…_

"What do you want, Jackson?" Lisa didn't bother to mask the bitterness in her voice.

"There's no need for animosity, Leese. I won't be here long." For some reason, the statement made her regret her words. Almost as if she didn't want him to just leave her life again. Before she could question his motives again, Jackson unzipped the top of the sweatshirt and brought the kitten out, the tiny creature still clinging to him for dear life. "I found it on the street, in a box. Abandoned. I think some of your Good Samaritan work from last night rubbed off on me, because I couldn't leave it behind. Only now I have no where to put it, and the motel doesn't allow pets."

Lisa's defenses melted down in a heartbeat, the past forgotten as she was at Jackson's side in an instant, taking the kitten from him. The kitten's fur was still damp from the rain, its tiny body shivering from the cold. "Oh... Poor little guy…" Lisa crooned over it. "C'mon, let's get you warmed up."

Five minutes later both Jackson and Lisa were in her kitchen, the kitten on the center island between them, now fluffy and dry and drinking from a shallow saucer of milk she had put down on the counter for it.

"You know… Milk technically isn't the best thing for cats."

"I know." Lisa shrugged. "But it's the best I can do right now. I'll go down to the pet store tomorrow morning and get some decent food for him. Might as well get a litter box while I'm at it."

"So you're going to keep it, then?"

"Of course I'll keep him. It _is _a boy, by the way. I've never had the chance to have a cat before. Mom never liked animals, and I've been too busy in the past couple of years for a pet. But now things have slowed down a bit, I don't see any reason to not keep him." By now the kitten was finished with the milk, and was now walking in small, clumsy circles across the counter. Lisa smiled and picked the kitten up, and it purred happily against her. She walked back out into her front room, placing the kitten on a blanket inside a box just in front of the fireplace. The kitten kneaded at the blanket for a moment before curling up, warm and dry and obviously quite happy to be out of the rain.

Lisa stood back up, smiling to herself for a job well done, and when she turned back around she saw that Jackson was already on her sofa, intently watching her. There was still a small voice in the back of Lisa's mind that continued to tell her to be careful around the man, but she figured to herself that if Jackson had wanted to hurt her, he would have already done it by now, or he would have done it in her sleep last night. He seemed to read her thoughts as he looked at her. "Don't worry Leese. I'm not going to hurt you. Wouldn't do me any good now, would it? The last thing I need is another reason for the police to come looking for me."

"So are you a fugitive or something?"

Jackson gave a half-shrug. "Not necessarily. They can't pin me for the attempted Keefe assassination, but let's just say that I haven't disappeared from their sights yet. No reason to be drawing attention to myself, not when I'm trying to get my life back in order."

"So what's with the change of heart? Last night you were whining about not having anything left."

"Guess being sober again finally gave me a chance to think things over. You probably have a part to play in there too somewhere."

Lisa relaxed, sitting on the opposite end of the couch from him, hands clasped before her. Silence hung thick in the air around them, and the lights of her Christmas tree continued to twinkle peacefully. "So…" Jackson started after a long moment. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Move on from the red eye so quickly. I've been trying to start over, but I have no idea where to start."

"Just…a different frame of mind than before, I suppose." Lisa began slowly. "I really made an effort to take my grandmother's words to heart."

"Always look forward?"

Lisa nodded. "I felt like I lost two years of life after the parking lot incident. Now that I think back on it, it kind of scares me, not having any decent memories and feeling as though two years were completely erased from my life. So, I figured let the past be the past. There's nothing I can do about it. Might as well make an attempt to make a decent future for myself."

"So what inspired the change of heart?"

"I met you."

Lisa could feel a blush radiating across her cheeks, but Jackson merely continued to stare at her, his expression unreadable. Then he slowly reached out to place his hand over hers, their fingers lightly entwining.

"I have a lot of work to do. Clear my name, set up a new identity, find a decent job. It's going to take a while. But, perhaps when everything's back on track, would you reconsider picking up where we left off?"

Lisa adverted her eyes. Just slightly, so he couldn't see the slight flash of hesitation in their depths. "I want to say yes, Jackson, but I can't. Not at this moment, anyway."

Jackson nodded, slowly, his fingers loosening from around hers. Instead of pulling away, Lisa's grip tightened around his.

"But that doesn't mean I don't want to try. After they took you away in the ambulance, I couldn't help but wonder what could have happened between us had the whole…well, ordeal never happened." She paused, swallowing. "I don't want to miss that opportunity again."

Instead of saying anything, Jackson lifted her hand from the cushion, bringing her hand up towards him and kissing her fingers gently. "Wait for me?"

"Just don't take too long."

"I can't make any promises."

Lisa shifted her position, stretching out across the couch so her body came to rest against Jackson's, her head on his shoulder. "Don't leave yet. It's always nicer to spend Christmas with someone…"

To say Jackson was surprised at her actions would have been an understatement. But he made no sign of it as he awkwardly draped an arm around her, resting his chin on top of her hair. "What are you going to tell your father?"

"The truth. It won't be easy for him to accept it, but he'll eventually come around. You know what a domestic life means, right? Besides the agony of having to go to work on a Monday morning, or waiting in long lines at the DMV and grocery store. You're also going to have to deal with close family get-togethers over the holiday, and our annual reunion bar-be-cue over the Fourth of July." Lisa shifted her position, looking up at him. "Think you can deal with all that? Or will it be too boring for an ex-manager who organized government overthrows and flashy high-profile assassinations?"

Jackson chuckled. "Trust me, Leese. Your boring, mundane life sounds much more appealing than no life at all."

Lisa smiled against his shirt, relaxing completely. Yes, they had a long journal ahead of them, but for some reason, it didn't bother her. The only thing that mattered then was that night, the few hours they had together, without worry, without obligation, before their long-time struggle began. Right now, all that mattered was the knowledge that everything would work out for the best, and that Jackson was now hers for keeps.

-x-x-x-

**Author's Note:** Yeay peach fuzz!

I did some research into winter in Miami, and while it doesn't get cold the way most of us know winters to be, it can get down into the 40s and 50s at night. So I hope this was somewhat accurate.

I was thinking about doing a follow-up… But no promises. Peace out, peeps.


End file.
